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The following post was written by Kendall Reingold, summer intern for the Alliance for Children and Families Center for Engagement and Neighborhood Building. She is an undergraduate student who has been assisting with the planning of the 2014 Neighborhood Revitalization Conference.

Can America’s communities really “make art, not war?” Recent research and the efforts of organizations like those presenting at the Alliance’s 2014 Neighborhood Revitalization Conference suggest that perhaps this dream is indeed possible.

In recent years, community-based arts programs have blossomed across the nation; and not just because they’re fun. Numerous studies have shown the importance of community-building initiatives in improving quality of life. One Harvard study even found that the degree to which communities work together toward common interests is a better indicator of the health and well-being of neighborhoods than wealth, access to healthcare, or even crime rates. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have found a link between arts programs, reduced rates of social distress, more peaceful interracial relations in urban neighborhoods, and even declines in poverty.

Local organizations have generated a diverse array of such arts programs, from spiritual art installations in parks to school theater initiatives that open a dialogue about social issues. At this year’s Neighborhood Revitalization Conference, we have the honor of welcoming a discussion about these programs in a workshop entitled “Creative Placemaking: Arts Engagement and Agency.” The workshop will feature four panelists: Erik Takeshita of the Twin Cities Local Initiative Support Coalition (LISC), Maria Rosario Jackson of the Kresge Foundation, Aviva Kapust of the Village of Arts and Humanities, and Faye Price of the Pillsbury House + Theatre.

Like other community arts organizations, the Village of Arts and Humanities and the Pillsbury House + Theatre are vital to their communities and have enriched them with creative outlets for residents of all ages. However, they cannot always fund these projects alone. Organizations like LISC and the Kresge Foundation play a crucial role in realizing community arts programs. The growing network of support for these programs parallels the growing consensus that engagement in the arts is a key to the successful revitalization of America’s neighborhoods.

The following post was written by Kendall Reingold, summer intern for the Alliance for Children and Families Center for Engagement and Neighborhood Building. She is an undergraduate student who has been assisting with the planning of the 2014 Neighborhood Revitalization Conference.

The 2014 Neighborhood Revitalization Conference is proud to present a workshop that will provide an inside look at successful strategies to engage community members in improving their own health and wellness. Featuring speakers from two Alliance member organizations, United Neighborhood Houses of New York and the Gary Comer Youth Center, as well as Aramark, an Alliance partner, the workshop offers three unique perspectives.

Jerica Broeckling, Program Manager of the Aramark Building Communities program at the Alliance for Children and Families will facilitate the workshop, entitled: “Using Authentic Engagement to Improve Health Outcomes.” The panel will include Terry Kaelber, Director of Community Engagement Projects at United Neighborhood Houses of New York; Ayoka Samuels, Senior Program Director at the Gary Comer Youth Center; and Michelle Jordan, Director of Community Relations at Aramark.

The presenters are committed to the importance of authentic engagement strategies. Mr. Kaelber explains, “Working to increase access to and use of healthy food often involves changing individual eating habits. Social norms drive eating habits and can be the doorway to changing individual behaviors. To impact social norms, a level of deep community engagement is needed.” For Kaelber, this means “projects must be driven and led by local residents, who are involved at the earliest points of idea generation and planning, are invested in through skill building and training opportunities, and who become partners and leaders throughout implementation and evaluation. Such approaches are built upon relationships and a commitment to partnering, both of which take time and tremendous effort, but the rewards and impact can be significant and long-lasting.”

Authentic engagement is a longstanding principle of community-based organizations, although the term itself is relatively new to the lexicon. This workshop is sure to help your organization realize its potential for positive authentic engagement outcomes. Register for the conference online to attend this workshop, which will take place on Thursday, July 24th, the first day of the conference.

The new Center for Engagement and Neighborhood Building at the Alliance for Children and Families is committed to “amplifying the values of the settlement house movement.” Technology allows for constant innovation in how we share the values and message of quality community development and civic engagement, and what it means for communities nationwide and around the world. To help us reach a wider audience with new and dynamic content, The Center is proud to announce its new Tumblr.

Tumblr is a savvy, multimedia tool integrating news, blogs, social media, photos, announcements, and connectivity to peer organizations and fans. This seamless sharing of information will allow The Center to bring new research, innovation, best practices, and success stories from the fields of neighborhood building and place-based policy to a wide audience in a fun, interactive, modern, and informative way.

We hope you’ll join us and the millions of other Tumblr users in using this fun new communications tool. Be sure to bookmark or follow http://ctr4engagement.tumblr.com/ and check us out regularly for news and updates from the field of neighborhood building.

The following post was written by Kendall Reingold, summer intern for the Alliance for Children and Families Center for Engagement and Neighborhood Building. She is an undergraduate student who has been assisting with the planning of the 2014 Neighborhood Revitalization Conference.

Here at the Alliance, we value organizations that achieve a high level of impact, by which we mean the creation of lasting positive change in their communities. ANDRUS, an Alliance member organization, exemplifies high impact in its Adverse Childhood Experiences Public Awareness Campaign. The campaign works to raise awareness and implement policies of trauma informed care. Trauma informed care is a shift in the traditional way caregivers approach behavioral issues. Kerron Norman, Vice President for Community Based Programs at ANDRUS, told Behavioral Healthcare, “We have to stop asking what’s ‘wrong’ with people…You look at a child who’s acting out in school, and the automatic response based on our cultural understanding would be, ‘What’s wrong with that child?’” Instead, we ought to ask, “What has happened to that child?”

The campaign, with the goal of educating as many individuals as possible who touch the lives of children in the City of Yonkers, caught on rapidly. ANDRUS has trained over two thousand community members, including parents, community leaders, school principals, clergy, city council members, and the mayor, and has now begun working closely with multiple schools throughout the City of Yonkers.

The community recognizes the quality of ANDRUS’ work: Westchester Magazine calls them “a leading provider of child and family resources.” Their success has come from a combination of leveraging different public and private funding streams; collaborative efforts; and thinking differently about our own services, to help create local systemic change.

Lorelei A. Vargas, Kerron Norman, and Mimi Corcoran of ANDRUS will present their story at the 2014 Neighborhood Revitalization Conference on July 25th, the second day of the conference. The workshop, “Leveraging research and resources for systemic change,” is a panel discussion that will cover 1) how current research is made accessible and shared with various stakeholders; 2) the process by which various stakeholders are engaged; 3) how public and private funding streams are directed towards this effort; 4) the various entry points to address and create systemic change; and 5) lessons learned in the process.

The following post was written by Kendall Reingold, summer intern for the Alliance for Children and Families Center for Engagement and Neighborhood Building. She is an undergraduate student who has been assisting with the planning of the 2014 Neighborhood Revitalization Conference.

In this digital age of transparency, the openness of data matters. Especially in issues that concern communities. To effect individual and neighborhood-level change in American communities, today’s top non-profits are putting data in the hands of community members themselves.

The 2014 Neighborhood Revitalization Conference, co-sponsored by the Alliance for Children and Families and the Center for the Study of Social Policy, addresses this connection between data and communities in a workshop entitled “Engaging Community in Data Collection, Analysis, and Planning.” Presenters Elsa Falkenburger, Leah Hendey, and Kathryn Pettit of the Urban Institute and Isaac Castillo of Alliance member organization the DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative (DCPNI) will lead the workshop.

Castillo, DCPNI’s Director of Data and Evaluation, emphasizes the importance of presenting data to residents in meaningful ways. “At DCPNI, we strive to include residents in the data collection process," he says. "We want residents to use data; the best way to get residents to use data is to have them involved from the point the data are collected through when the data are released publicly.” This type of inclusive approach is important for all organizations trying to enhance their engagement efforts.

The interactive skill-building workshop, held on July 24, the first day of the Neighborhood Revitalization Conference, will showcase efforts to combine the skills of research experts with the deep knowledge that community residents have of their neighborhoods, as well as examples from the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership and the DC Promise Neighborhood of sharing data with community groups to spur new conversations and inform strategies.